Beyond Visibility? Queer Sociology and the Limits of Recognition In Turbulent Times

Visibility has long occupied a central place in LGBTQ+ politics and scholarship, frequently framed as a pathway toward recognition, rights, and social inclusion. Yet in many contexts, increasing visibility has coincided with new forms of surveillance, precarity, commodification, and affective exhaustion. In an era marked by political polarization, resurgent nationalism, democratic instability, and intensified inequalities, visibility itself warrants renewed sociological scrutiny.

In dialogue with the Congress theme “Global Sociology in Turbulent Times,” this Open Session invites contributions that examine the promises and limits of visibility within queer lives and politics. The session seeks to advance queer sociology by exploring how sexual and gender minorities navigate, resist, negotiate, or refuse dominant regimes of recognition.

We welcome papers addressing themes including—but not limited to—visibility and invisibility; opacity and refusal; queer exhaustion and precarity; everyday negotiation of identity; surveillance and digital life; neoliberal diversity and inclusion; activism and backlash; intersectional inequalities; and the uneven global distribution of recognition and rights.

Contributions from diverse empirical settings and methodological approaches are encouraged, including qualitative, quantitative, comparative, and interdisciplinary work. Papers engaging perspectives from the Global South, transnational and diasporic contexts, and marginalized or underrepresented communities are especially welcome.

By moving beyond visibility as a taken-for-granted political horizon, this session seeks to foster critical dialogue on how queer lives are lived and theorized amid contemporary turbulence.